NAFDAC opens door for online product registration

New measures by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control will allow drug manufacturers start registration procedures online in moves to enter the Nigerian market.

Firms initiating registration online for their products can monitor progress online, but must maintain a local partner to provide samples for laboratory testing, said the agency’s director-general Paul Orhii.

Speaking in Abuja during talks with KIM and its Portugal-based partners making a foray into the Nigerian drug market, Orhii said the agency’s encouragement of online registration was to make NAFDAC’s work “more transparent and predictable.”

KIM—a pharmaceutical consultancy, run by NAFDAC’s ex-head of evaluation and monitoring, Hauwa Keri— prompted the agency’s stance to have more experienced pharmaceutical types start consultancies that can help potential partners abide by the guidelines of the drug and food regulator.

KIM’s partners—Basi Laboratorios and Jaba Recordati, both based in Portugal—are looking to “develop a market where Nigeria is the focus,” said Joaquim Chavez of Basi.

The firm, which commenced official registration last year, is looking to provide its range of drugs—for cardiovascular ailments, women and children—on the Nigerian market at the standards of European consumers, hence its emphasis on quality control and pharmacovigilance, said Chavez.

He said Nigeria was “one of the most relevant markets we will have in future.”